Nów, Warsaw: Trust the Kitchen. Trust the Witch.

Own visit. No commercial arrangement with the restaurant.

The Arrival

You walk into Nów and the city disappears. The room is dark, intimate, controlled. If someone told you this was the set of The Menu, the best version of it, without the killing, you would believe them. Twenty seats. Candlelight. An open kitchen where the chefs are part of the room rather than hidden behind it. The music is low. The energy is focused. You are not here to be seen. You are here to eat.

The Food

There are seven courses, and the restaurant does not publish the menu. That is deliberate, and that is the point. Nów is built around the idea that the best version of a meal is the one you do not see coming. We are keeping most of the details where they belong, at the table, but there are things worth saying.

The starter arrives as a salad built around fruit and bób, and it sets the tone immediately. Light, precise, seasonal. The kind of opening that tells you the kitchen is thinking carefully about every element.

The pigeon is the course that defines the evening. Deconstructed, with the heart and the leg presented as separate statements on the same plate. This is not a safe dish. It asks you to engage with the animal in a way most restaurants avoid. The execution is immaculate. If you eat one dish in Warsaw this year, this is a serious candidate.

The dessert closes with ice cream and Antonius caviar, a combination that sounds confrontational on paper and lands as one of the most elegant finishes we have experienced. Salt, cold, sweetness, luxury, all in a single spoon.

If there is a weaker moment, it is a mid-course dish built around a cheese foam that did not carry the same conviction as everything else around it. In a seven-course sequence this precise, one dish that feels slightly uncertain stands out more than it would elsewhere.

The Wine and the Witch

We were three, and between us we ordered both pairing options (everything except the most expensive wine tier) and the non-alcoholic alternative. All three were exceptional.

The sommelier is Magdalena Babik, who is also the manager of Nów. She describes herself, with increasing confidence as the evening progresses, as a witch. And the description is accurate. The pairings are not accompaniments. They are interventions. Each glass changes the dish it sits beside, not by competing with it but by revealing something the food alone does not show. The non-alcoholic pairing is not a lesser version of the wine programme. It is a parallel experience built on fermentation, botanicals and seasonal ingredients, and it deserves equal respect.

Piotr Pietras, one of three Master Sommeliers in Poland and the co-founder of Kontakt Wino & Bistro (VT 82/100, Michelin Bib Gourmand), designed the wine programme. The pedigree is real and the execution matches it.

The Room

Dark. Warm. Controlled. Wood, metal, handmade ceramics, artwork. Everything in the room belongs to the same world as the food. The chefs describe every course themselves, which keeps the distance between kitchen and guest almost at zero. You can feel the attention in the room. It is not performative. It is genuine.

The evening lasts two and a half hours, which is exactly right. Long enough to feel like an event. Short enough that nothing drags.

The Departure

When the meal ends, you receive a goodie bag. Inside: the printed menu (the first time you see it in full) and a tea, an essence to take home that is designed to remind you of the experience. It is a small gesture that reveals how completely Nów has thought about the arc of an evening, from the moment you arrive in the dark to the moment you open something at home the next morning and the memory returns.

The Verdict

Nów is one of the most complete dining experiences currently operating in Warsaw or anywhere in Europe at this price point. Seven courses at 490 PLN (approximately €115) without pairing, from a kitchen trained at Jordnær and Geranium, in a room that seats twenty, with a Master Sommelier's wine programme and a manager who calls herself a witch and earns the title.

The pigeon is the essential course. The caviar dessert is the one you will remember longest. The goodie bag is the reason you will tell someone else to go.

Trust the kitchen. Trust the witch.

Address: Pańska 97, Warsaw, Poland.

VT Rating: 92/100Food 19 · Atmosphere 19 · Service 18 · Value 16 · Uniqueness 20

The first perfect Uniqueness score in the VT database.